Mondo Utah
by Monti
Summary: It was only a matter of time before Sam and Dean stumble upon the weirdness that is Utah. Set after Faith, before Route 666. WIP
1. Come Come Ye Saints

A/N: This is a story from inside the Jello Belt, smuggled out past the Zion Curtain, that wonderful place where a stakehouse is not a restaurant. It's a bit inside with obscure references, but stick with me and maybe we'll figure it out. The title comes from a book written by Trent Harris, and believe me, every word in that book is true, and I highly recommend it.

Disclaimer: Don't make me say it, what, you wanna see a grown woman cry? Fine! Not mine. SOB 

ooooOOoooo

Brother Redd was going to be late for priesthood meeting.

"Flippin' tire," he muttered, kneeling down next to his car, staring at the flat tire in defeat. He knew he should have gone to the last priesthood activity, when Brother Christiansen had presented a class on car care. But he hadn't, and now Heavenly Father was punishing him for skipping church.

He stood and checked down the empty road in both directions, hoping for headlights. The road was empty, twilight settling softly over the rolling farmland. The smell of lilac was heavy in the air, a sure sign that spring was close.

He rubbed his face, checked the time on his wristwatch, dismayed at how late it was. Bishop Patterson was going to think he had gone apostate, or that someone in the ward had offended him.

"Need help, Brother?"

The voice was close, startling him into a whispered _damn _and he turned to see a young man dressed in a white shirt and tie standing next to the hood of his car. He wasn't sure, but thought he could make out a name tag over the right breast pocket. His heart eased back to normal, and the frustration he had felt over the flat tire lifted.

He grinned. "Sure do, Elder. Know how to change a tire?"

There was a flat, uneasy moment of silence, and Brother Redd's grin began to sag, but abruptly the missionary stepped forward. "Sure do! Flat tire, eh?" His face was young and unremarkable in the uneven light as he knelt down next to the tire.

"Yep," Brother Redd replied, and bent slightly to look over the missionary's shoulder at the tire.

The missionary was silent, sitting on his heels with his wrists on his knees, the hands dangling. He made no attempt to touch the wheel, and again came a weird moment of something not right.

Brother Redd straightened, glancing up and down the road again. "Elder? Where's your companion?" He turned slightly, hearing a car coming up the road, his back to the elder.

"I lost him," The voice was right next to his ear, and the anxious feeling that had been gnawing at Brother Redd suddenly blossomed into fear. Something inhuman and not right and evil spoke with that voice.

He began to turn, thinking _oh, Heavenly Father, fuck me—_

There was a flash of pain, wire thin and hot, through his chest, and Brother Redd's last thought, as he stared down at the splash of blood and his arm on the ground, was of how good it felt to finally drop the F bomb.

ooooOOoooo

The scent of death was familiar to Sam.

Many different smells he associated with death, from burning the remains of a cowboy in Santa Fe, a body so desiccated by heat and sand that it burned with a smell like creosote, to a body just gone in a Florida swamp, a smell so foul it had been days before any of them had been able to eat.

After Jess, he couldn't bear the smell of fresh-baked cookies.

And after Nebraska, he would forever associate the smell of wet canvas with loss and hurt.

Now, in a cemetery so old the living no longer remembered it, Sam used his shovel's blade to break open the casket he had just uncovered, and a smell like old carpet and beetles breathed over him.

"Sam, you got that open yet?"

The sawed-off spoke, a blast that rebounded in the air, making Sam's ears ring. He didn't look up, bending and pitching pieces of casket out of the grave, until he met the empty gaze of Karl Otterson. "Got it!" he yelled back to Dean, flinging himself half out of the grave to grab the rock salt and gasoline.

Again the blast from the shotgun, and Dean cursing. The curious, fingernails-on-the-blackboard sound of the ghost humming, feinting at Dean only to disappear as he turned and pulled the trigger again, rock salt spraying harmlessly through the empty air. "Do it, Sam!"

But it was already half-done, bones darkening as they soaked up the gasoline. Sam paused, the match flaring in his hand, his eyes meeting the skull's, Sam thinking benediction and peace before he dropped the match among the bones.

The sound of flame meeting gasoline, a soft orgasmic _whoosh._

And the sleeve of Sam's shirt was on fire. He watched it for a moment in bemusement, a small flame with a blue heart, dancing and eating the cotton fabric. It kissed the soft skin inside his wrist, and he hissed, a bit panicked, and threw himself out of the grave, legs kicking for footholds in the soft dirt. Rubbed his sleeve, hard, on the ground.

There was one last roar from Dean's shotgun, Dean always trying to get the last word, and the barely audible sound of the ghost abruptly cut out.

Sam lay on his belly beside the grave, snorting in an attempt to clear his nose of the gasoline stench. Something with teeth nibbled lightly on the inside of his wrist. Incredulous, Sam lifted his arm, and the flame with a blue heart licked lightly up his thumb. "The fuck," he murmured, and shook his hand. The flame stayed, somehow switched to the back of his hand, and Sam watched as a few hairs crisped, curling away from the heat. He shook his hand again, drawing his legs up and sitting back on his heels.

"Hold still." Dean knelt next to him, grabbing Sam's wrist. The flame moved slightly down Sam's hand, toward Dean. There was salt in the palm of Dean's other hand, and he held it over the flame, preparing to extinguish it.

He paused. The flame danced, its blue heart pulsing. "Kinda cool?"

Sam gritted his teeth. "Well, yeah, but it hurts like a son of a bitch."

"Sorry." Dean turned his hand, and the salt pattered down. The flame went out noiselessly.

Sam pushed the charred sleeve up his arm, revealing a small red trail over the inside of his wrist and up the thumb. "Shit. Hurts. What the hell was it?"

Dean shrugged, and stood, grabbing up the shotgun and emptying it of shells. "Don't really know. Dad thinks it's the spirit trying to stay alive."

"So Otterson's gone?"

Dean nodded, and turned away, grabbing up a duffle and easily vaulting the worn iron fence encircling the cemetery. "Get your stuff. Let's go."

When Sam caught up with him, Dean was behind the wheel of the Impala, frowning down at his phone. Sam stowed his duffle, and slid in the passenger's side, grabbing up his own phone. Nothing.

"Dammit," breathed Sam, and Dean frowned.

"He's busy, Sam, give him a break." Dean's voice dull, as if reciting something learned long ago, and long ago discarded as useless.

Sam scowled and tossed the phone on dash, where it rattled against the window. "C'mon, Dean, you were dying and the old man can't even call?"

Dean was silent, frowning down at the silent phone in his grip.

"Admit it; you're just as pissed off as I am." Sam scratched at his knee.

"Sam, you're on fire."

"Yeah, Dean, I'm mad, glad you could finally acknowledge it."

Dean's brow furrowed, anger sparking in his own eyes. "No, Sam, really, you're on fire." He gestured to Sam's knee.

The small lick of flame, blue at its heart, burned steadily on Sam's right knee, charring a small hole in the denim. Sam kicked out instinctively, scrabbling at the Chevy's handle in a mad attempt to get out, escape the fire. Dean was already out his side, running to the trunk and grabbing out the box of rock salt. Sam, finally able to open the door and drop down to the ground, grade school lessons of _Stop Drop and Roll_ echoing in his mind.

Dean danced next to his brother's writhing form, shaking rock salt over him indiscriminately and yelling, "Hold still, hold still!"

They finally cornered the flame on Sam's shoulder, and Dean dumped the remaining rock salt over it, and again it disappeared without fanfare. A small moment of nothing, as both men struggled to catch their breaths and their thoughts.

A curious noise from Dean, and Sam glanced up to see Dean bent at the waist, his hands on his knees and his shoulders shaking. Sam sat up, staring at his brother. "Dean?"

"… finally acknowledging it … and you're sitting there … " Dean took in a breath, let it out in a great whoop of laughter. "… you're sitting there on fire … " And he went silent again, his breath coming in and out with a low whistle.

"Shut up," said Sam mildly, his face contorting as he tried to not smile.

"… acknowledge it … oh God, you were so smug … acknowledge it …" Dean's slightly hysterical laughter more a result of left-over adrenaline rather than Sam's so-not-hysterical situation. At least Sam hoped it was the case.

Dean couldn't stop laughing during the ten minutes back to the highway, and couldn't stop smiling until he shut the Impala off in the parking lot of their motel. This despite the fact of Sam's quiet and empty phone on the dash, his own equally silent in his pocket.

It was a silence that had followed them in the weeks since they had left Nebraska, haunted every curve the Impala took as they climbed the Rockies and came down the other side. Silence that had dogged them into the shabby motel outside the mediocrity of Grand Junction, Colorado, a town poised between the rich lushness of the Rockies and the barren aestheticism of Utah's red deserts.

Sam had not been strong enough to fight the silence, the musty smell from LaGrange's rain soaked tent filling the air in his head with the threat of a loss so devastating there would be no after. The memory of Dean, defeated and insubstantial, slumped in the car's front seat with his cheek against the glass sapped Sam of passion, fury, vengeance.

The weeks following had been filled with nothing. They hit the road every morning late, too late, and turned into whatever motel was nearby early, too early. Long lunches at greasy spoons that did not warrant any lingering, rest stops that consisted of Dean pushing quarter after quarter into the pinball machine. Both men distant, each holding to the other with lax grips, unconcerned about where the Impala took them, thinking only _hold on, hold on,_ but too worn and tired to act on the thought.

And it seemed that John had decided to let go. Neither of them had thought to call, to leave a message that Dean was okay; neither of them wanted to handle the emotion that such a call would demand. John had let go, and the brothers could only hold to each other.

They had found the ghost in a rather pedestrian way; when they stopped at a motel in Grand Junction and the proprietor had put them in a haunted room. _A gangster had killed himself there,_ the proprietor had said, her white eyebrows winging out over her forehead in a perpetual expression of surprise. _Wouldn't you boys love to stay in a haunted room?_

Dean had waggled his eyebrows at Sam behind her back, his smile ferocious. _Yes, ma'am, sure would be a treat._

And Sam, grinning back, felt a connection again, a touch of something that caused his grip to tighten.

And not only was the room haunted, but the spirit was concerned with more than scaring tourists; the town's paper proclaimed another officer found dead, unmarked, with no clues as to the murderer. Found slumped over in his patrol car, the radar gun lodged in the window, still clocking passing traffic. And just last month the former police chief had committed suicide with a shotgun, though no one was really sure how it had been accomplished, as they couldn't find any spent shells or gunpowder or any evidence that the shotgun had even discharged.

Turned out the former police chief had bones rattling in his closet. A side venture, to finance his retirement, and the small town drug dealer who had helped moved drugs from the evidence locker back to the streets had been found with his brains on the wall behind him in the motel room. And the dealer's spirit, created by violence and hate, finding power in death, had come back to the small town in search of payback.

Eventually the trail had led them to the cemetery, had led them to Karl Otterson, and Dean had stood look out while Sam had finally uncovered the casket. It was good, Sam decided, even while he tried to put out a supernatural flame that dodged every effort and Dean danced around him like a crazy person, scattering salt. Good to be dragged out of the self-induced coma they had created for themselves, good to feel something other than the numbing pull of the road, even if it did hurt like a son of a bitch.

And Dean's full-throated laugh, head back and eyes squirting tears, had been like the sun rising after a hideously dark and stormy night.

A light still there, as Dean killed the Impala's engine in the motel parking lot, the late afternoon sun shading the door to their now unhaunted room a blood red. Dean was still smiling as he slid out of the car, though darkness remained, storm clouds still threatened, the light patchy at best. Before LaGrange had been Lawrence, and Sam wouldn't bet that meeting the reaper had been harder for Dean than seeing their mother in flames. The odds were poor on that match-up and Sam had learned from the best how to bet his money.

They relaxed into ritual that evening, Sam showering first, enduring Dean's rote warnings about hogging all the hot water, Dean laying weapons down on a chamois cloth across his bed for cleaning. Comfort this time, despite their quiet phones, comfort hard won after the ghost, and Sam enjoyed the hot water pounding on the sore muscles of his neck.

When he stepped out after the shower, everything had changed.

Dean was sitting on Sam's bed, Sam's laptop next to him, and his face so pale Sam was sure LaGrange had been for nothing, that Dean was going to die right here in front of him. "Fuck, Sam," he said, his voice strangled with emotion, his green eyes hard and glittering on Sam's face.

"What happened?"

In answer Dean turned the laptop's screen toward Sam. There was picture of Layla at the top of the window, and her name in bold next to it. Sam's first thought was anger, rage that the bitch would choose now to die, when Dean had been so close to himself again. After that thought Sam kinda closed down, put up an out of order sign up, because Layla had glowed with a light seldom found, and Sam wouldn't punish her with his anger.

He sat gingerly down amongst the guns on Dean's bed, across from Dean, their knees bridging the gap between them. "Dean. I'm sorry." He spread his hands, pouring sympathy and kindness in his eyes, his eyes touching Dean's face, the only touch Dean would accept. "What can I say?"

Dean was nodding, a thin line bisecting his eyebrows, shying away from Sam's gaze. "I know, I know. You're right, you're right."

"Right about what?"

"She was ready; she knew what was going to happen. She made her peace."

Sam was silent, his head cocked slightly as he regarded his older brother. "Dean, man, that's all you. You know that, you're right about that, not me. It's all you."

"That's what you'd tell me."

"But I didn't. You did." Dean was quiet, still turned away from Sam's gaze, his eyes frozen on a water stain near the top of the wall. Sam pushed it, tapped his finger on his brother's knee. "Listen to yourself, man."

Dean nodded again, turned the green eyes briefly back to Sam's face. "I want to find Dad, Sam. I need Dad." A rare admission, words that seemed to tear Dean's throat as he said them, and he made a small movement of pain.

Sam ruthlessly crushed the small bloom of anger at the mention of his father. He nodded, looking away, drawing his hands back. "Dad doesn't want to be found, Dean. He made that perfectly clear after Ellicott." The name reminding him of other storms they had avoided, Sam thinking good soldier and favorite son, and Dean not thinking anything because Sam never asked.

Dean made that small, restless movement with his head that telegraphed the beginnings of tough conversations. "Shit, Sam, I know. I just want –" He stopped, leaving Sam guessing, as usual, as to what Dean wanted. Peace? A pastrami sandwich? Angelina Jolie spread on a cracker?

John had been able to talk to Dean, to bring out safely the emotion and feeling that Dean had always viewed as weakness. For a moment the envy Sam felt threatened to choke him, envy at the easy communication Dean and John had always enjoyed, the nearly seamless way they had worked together on hunts. Sam had spent most of his life feeling like the third wheel, searching for way in, a way to connect with his father. It had been one of the reasons he had left.

He had left, and was coming back the prodigal son. In bleak moments he wondered what John would slaughter to mark the event.

But Dean was here, now, demanding from Sam in a wordless way that drove the younger brother crazy. _Guess what I want, Sam, guess and make it all better._ Sam ran his hand through his hair, raised his gaze back to Dean's face. "We'll find him, Dean. We know he was in California. That's better than knowing nothing."

Dean rubbed his face, turned away from Sam to grab the laptop. "The whole reason I went online." He tapped the back button a couple of times, found the window, and set the laptop on Sam's knees. "Read that. I'm taking a shower." In other words, _wrong again, Sammy boy._

But Sam had learned to roll with the punches, and he took the laptop in resignation, scanning the on-line newspaper Dean had pulled up. He went through the first paragraph quickly, picking out the phrases _body_ and _no leads_ and, disconcertingly, _arm torn off_. "So, what, we're hunting again?" He tossed this over his shoulder, catching Dean just going into the bathroom.

Dean's smile was shark thin. "Can't wait forever for the phone to ring, Sammy."

"But this is in Salt Lake."

"Yeah?"

"As in Utah."

"What's wrong with Utah?"

Sam couldn't articulate it. Utah was a place read about in the "ain't that weird" section of the national newspapers, had a smell of not cool about it. He shrugged in defeat. "Never mind."

After Dean's shower they cleaned guns, caught up on Lettermen, and theorized about what would and could pull the arms off a man. Dean talked easily, ignoring Sam's underhanded glances, his eyes shuttered and opaque. Sam was reminded of his father, playing cards close to the chest, letting people see only what he wanted them to see.

But Sam had pushed in Nebraska, had put Dean through a fucking threshing machine in Lawrence, and he was dismayed at how Dean had accepted it. Had accepted it simply because Sam had asked. In some things Sam could give, small things, and Sam let the evening go to talk of Angelina Jolie and who would win if a wendigo and a rawhead got in a fight.

A nightmare brought Sam awake in the early hours of morning, a nightmare where Sam had wished peace on the cop-killing Otterson, and had been rewarded by bursting into flame. And any nightmare with fire in it inevitably brought him to Jess again, the cookie turning to ash in his mouth at the sight of Jess on the ceiling.

He came awake with a slight jerk, his head throbbing, but there had been nothing urgent in his dream, nothing that forced him out of bed and running into the night. He sat up, padded to the bathroom, yawning. A small drink of water, downed a couple of ibuprofen, switched the light off and stepped back towards his bed.

The darkness of the room was incrementally brighter, flickering, and Sam glanced toward his brother's bed.

A small lick of flame, blue at its heart, burned steadily at the foot of Dean's bed. Sam went to it, watching. The flame was still, moving only when it had burned through the bedspread, its blue heart racing like a bird's in its thin body. Sam glanced up at Dean, bonelessly asleep, and down again to the flame. The flame stretched itself, lengthening in an attempt to reach Sam.

Sam stepped away, found an open duffle on the table behind him, and a half empty liter of holy water inside. He unscrewed the lid, took a step toward the flame, his long arm reaching toward the flame, tipping the bottle. Abruptly the flame flared out, kissed the side of his hand. Sam sucked his breath in at the pain, the small jerk of his hand sending holy water down over the flame.

For a moment the flame held, ignoring the water, lighting the planes and angles of Sam's face, and then went out with a sound like a sob.


	2. Oh How Lovely Was the Morning

They left early, when day was just shading the eastern horizon to pink, Dean restless and wanting to feel movement. The cut inflicted from Layla's death was sharp and fresh, and Dean was edgy waiting for the pain to hit. They left Colorado behind, came into Utah in that weird belt of no man's land that bisected the heat of the desert from the cold of the mountains, all brush and green copper dirt and eagles in the cloudless sky.

Sam was slumped down in the passenger's seat until his knees were jammed painfully against the dash, watching the eagles roller coast above them. Rage Against the Machine was playing, the brothers' only compromise as far as music was concerned, Sam grateful to listen to music created in his lifetime, Dean liking the hard beat of _Pistol Grip Pump._ It was comforting to him, the same way the Glock was comforting, and he ignored the political undertones. And Sam was watching the eagles, and Dean was thinking of Jericho, and how it had been kinda fun, at first.

In Jericho, hunting down the woman in white, the two of them rediscovering old strengths and weaknesses, discovering new traits. Sam was still stubborn, still questioning, and still simmering with resentment towards John. But he also was still funny, still unflinching, still whip-smart; and having him at Dean's back eased something inside that had been tense for far too long. Which made the woman in white case way too much fun, even with Dad missing and Dean wondering if the sheriff was feeling frisky.

He spoke without thinking. "Jericho was fun."

Long hours in the Impala with Dean's wandering mind had accustomed Sam to these random bursts of conversations. He answered lazily, craning his head as the eagles fell behind them. "Jericho as in the walls came tumbling down?"

"Nah. Jericho as in California."

Sam was silent, straightening in his seat, his long arms crossing over his chest. "Oh." His voice was neutral, but Dean turned his head to look at his brother, sensing the sudden stillness.

"I mean, before – " Dean stopped, turned back to the freeway. Clay hills and pale brush rushed by them, the Escalante cliffs jagged and foreboding in the distance. "Sorry." Dean's voice was quiet.

Sam grinned falsely, dropping his hands in his lap, his eyes searching the bleak landscape outside. "No, man, you're right. It was kinda fun. Does the sheriff still write you love letters?"

The Impala finished a long curve downhill, and abruptly the Green River was in front of them, under them as they crossed the bridge. Dean's mouth was slightly curved in response, his comeback automatic. "I had to let him down easy. He wasn't my type."

And Dean was cursing himself, his grip tight on the Impala's wheel, because while dropping Sam off back in Palo Alto had been like shouldering a burden long thought discarded, picking him up again had been worse.

Because there had been fear, and adrenaline, and sorrow that the bright, happy little thing that had been Sam's girlfriend was gone; but there also had been a gleeful, vicious relief that Dean wouldn't have to go at it alone anymore. That's when things had ceased to be fun, had settled into a terrifying routine that had kept Dean a willing prisoner to Sam's tunnel vision, Sam's single-minded goal of finding Dad.

An exit beckoned ahead of them, and Dean saw the long skinny pole with the blue chevron on top and suddenly craved coffee. "Let's stop. I need sugar and caffeine."

Sam made a small move of impatience, a slight flicker of his fingers. He was quiet, his mouth pressed into a thin frown.

"We won't be long." Dean's temper growling a bit at Sam's moody response.

Sam shrugged, because the Chevy had already taken the exit, wheels whining briefly on the rumble strips. The exit ramp's gradual curve took them right into the convenience store's parking lot, and the boys opened car doors into a chill, thin wind.

Utah was bright and cold, the sky endless above them, a smell like ice and sand blowing into the open car. Sam finished his purchases first, and was sitting in the Impala with the door open, his long legs on the ground outside the car. He was reading the headlines of a newspaper as Dean walked toward him, and Dean saw him abruptly start, a small half-jump of surprise.

"What the fuck!" Sam's tone was sharp with frustration.

"What's going on?" Dean closed the distance quickly, going to the passenger side and bending to look in at this brother.

Sam's face was puzzled and angry at once. "It came back."

The small, left-over blaze from Otterson's bones danced happily on the dash, more agitated than before, its body quivering with effort. It was moving too quickly to do much damage to the dash, its blue heart trembling. Seeing the flame in his car, in his baby, and Dean panicked, sending the small stash of sugar and carbos in his arms tumbling across the asphalt. "Put it out, it'll hurt the car!"

Sam was searching helplessly through the car for anything that would douse the flame, and suddenly Dean was leaning across him, and there was a splash as Dean threw the coffee he was still holding over the flame.

The flame held, stubborn, and a sound like a giggle was blown away by the wind. Again, the flame began its erratic dance across the dashboard, and Dean made a hurt noise at the trail it left.

Sam heaved himself out of the car, pushing Dean roughly away. "Fuck, Dean, you have to use salt or holy water!" A couple of steps and he was at the trunk, scrabbling at the lock. "Keys!"

Dean's throw was shaky, and the keys skidded across the asphalt between Sam's shoes. Both men groaned, and Dean was cursing while Sam grabbed the keys and finally got the trunk open. A liter of holy water came easily to hand and Sam underhanded it to Dean, who caught it smoothly, twisted it open, and liberally doused the inside of the car with the liquid. When he stepped back, the flame was gone, and both men were panting. The inside of the Impala dripped and steamed with water and coffee.

"Oh, fuck," groaned Dean, and he chucked the empty plastic bottle across the parking lot.

"We gotta stop panicking when the thing shows up." Sam was peering quizzically into the Impala, noting the small trail of melted vinyl the flame had left.

"What!? The car was on fire!"

"Yeah, but didn't really hurt it." He motioned to the charred trail in the dash. "That's just like its footprints or something. It came last night too, when you were asleep."

"In the motel?" Dean's eyes were sharp on Sam's face.

"Yeah."

Dean made an exasperated move with his hands. "How do we get rid of it?"

Sam shrugged. "Let me do some research, look through Dad's journal."

They both looked again into the Impala's interior, and again Dean groaned. "This is going to be a bitch to clean up."

And Sam's face was scrunched up with dismay. "Oh, man, my laptop!"

When they finally finished with the clean up, blue paper towels stuffed into garbage cans and blowing across the parking lot, a box of rock salt between them in the front seat, and about twenty miles up the freeway, Dean realized he had forgotten to get another cup of coffee.

His cursing lasted nearly two minutes, and carried a slightly hysterical edge as Dean finally found an outlet for every emotion he had shoved aside since Lawrence. Some curses were aimed at John, some at Sam, a lot of them at Ellicott and the rawhead and the poltergeist and even at Missouri and her fucking goddamned spoon –

When he finally fell silent, Sam was looking at him with wide eyes, one corner of his mouth quirked in humor. "Wow." He paused, letting the word carry the weight of his admiration. "Didn't know you felt that way about Jesus."

"And his bicycle." Still some heat in his words and Dean gripped the steering wheel with white knuckles. His gaze found the burn marks on the dash again, and he rubbed at them furiously. "Stupid flame. Stupid Otterson."

Sam looked down at John's journal in his lap, flipped through some pages idly. "Well, there's nothing in here about spirit flames. A little bit about will-o-wisps, but they don't really fit our guy's M.O."

"Some spirits attach themselves to people. Poltergeists, banshees."

Sam looked at him. "Ever hear of a flame?"

Dean's mouth thinned in frustration. "Not beyond finishing them with rock salt." He sighed dramatically, annoyance evident as the smell of coffee rippled up from the seat. "Maybe Nick will know."

"Nick?" Sam's tone was mild, as was his raised eyebrow, but Dean heard something and shot a sideways glance at him, suspicious.

Dean wondered again at his own non-stop forward motion, his taking for granted that the things around him would be pulled forward by his own sheer impulse. He was going to Nick's because that's what he did every time he went Salt Lake, and the thought that he should inform others of this had never occurred to him. Perhaps that's why Sam had pulled the trigger on the Glock, in the asylum. It was Sam just tired of being flotsam in his wake.

He shrugged, angry again at his own thoughtlessness, defensive now. "Nick's a friend of mine, helps me out with research. We – " a small hitch, the silence of the phone in his pocket suddenly deafening – "always stayed with Nick in Salt Lake."

"So Nick's a friend of Dad's? Is he a hunter?" Again, the mild tone, but Dean's hackles rose.

"No, she's not a hunter." The feminine pronoun seemed loud in the coffee-scented air. "She's a grad student at the University. Nick's short for Nicole or Nicollette or something." Nervous, he glanced at Sam, his thumbs zipping along the raised ridges on the Impala's wheel.

"Okay."

Sam's silence was long, rubbed Dean in all the wrong ways, and he remembered an Ellicott-powered Sam glaring at him down the barrel of the shotgun. "Fine!" The word was louder than he meant it, but he was still angry and yearning for coffee from the bottom of his soul. "I'm sorry! I should have told you first!" And added another sentence on how he felt about Jesus Christ, and crackers.

"Dean," Sam was snorting, his brow furrowed with confusion and amusement. He was laughing, hard, and at Dean's questioning look he said, "Sometimes an Okay is just an Okay. Something –" and he cracked up again, and Dean looking at him wondered if he was laughing or sobbing. "Something Ellicott left behind."

The question Sam's remark raised was left imprinted in Dean's mind, like mischievous fingers in wet cement; _What else did Ellicott leave behind? _But thinking of the dead doctor's fingerprints on Sam's soul wasn't any better than the replay of his mother walking towards him in flame, so he shut his mouth and willed the Impala to Salt Lake.

ooooOOoooo

Gilgal waited for them in Salt Lake, the garden just taking on faint green fuzziness as the March morning began, the sphinx and eagles and arch waiting for inimitable touch from which to draw power, to give power, to conduit power. The sphinx kept its own counsel, as usual, gazing at a faraway horizon only it could see. The body between its paws looked up at it with the glassy gaze perfected by the dead.

A man dressed in the white shirt and dark tie ubiquitous to Mormon missionaries stared down at the body, absently wiping dripping fingers across his chest. His gaze went from the body up to the face on the sphinx. Pure adoration filled the man's youngish face, and he reached out his stained hand, touched the stone skin reverently. "Keeper of the Word." His voice was low and unnatural. Whatever bird song had floated in the garden was gone. "Keeper of the Word."

ooooOOoooo

Salt Lake was basking in post-storm warmth as the Impala took the last long curve down into the valley. Mountains rose up in stark white and navy and black to the east, the long dead stretch of Great Salt Lake and Salt Flats to the west. Both Sam and Dean gave silent sighs of relief as the end of their journey came into view; it had not been an easy trip.

The flame had made one more appearance on the trip up, while the Impala labored up a long grade with twists and turns, and it was only Sam's iron grip on Dean's forearm that kept them from slamming into the granite sides of the canyon.

_Don't panic, don't panic,_ his voice sure and steady, his other hand reaching for the rock salt between them. The flame was unmoving on the dash again, and Sam was able to fling a small amount of salt over it, ignoring its effort to touch his hand. It went out with something like a frustrated sigh.

Sam looked at his brother, at the tense jaw and shadowed eyes, anger thinning the mouth, and let go of his arm. _Jericho was fun, _Dean had said, a touch of wistfulness in his voice, but Sam could only remember the half-assed peck on the cheek he had given Jessica, the last time he had seen her.

But the remainder of the trip he pushed beyond the bemused look in Jess's face when he left, and thought again of him and Dean, on the road, following Dad's trail. He had found within himself a calm spot, able to deal with Dean's shiny glittery hard edge, able to find the humor in Dean's view of the world. And thinking about it now, the smooth way they had communicated, the easy, deflecting way they had moved past hints of Mom and John and Stanford, and Sam grinned to himself.

Dean took an exit, his brow furrowing as he looked for landmarks, and Sam took him completely by surprise when he said, "You're right. Jericho was fun."

Dean grinned, open and pleased. "Jericho as in the walls came tumbling down?"

Sam laughed, one long arm stretching along the back of the Impala's seat. "Always loved Bible stories."

Dean scowled, not able to hide the happy look in his eyes. "You know how I feel about Jesus."

When Sam met Nick, he was totally unprepared for the small, open thing that flung herself at Dean furiously, thin arms going around his neck in a tight grip. She was sobbing, her face painted with red and pale blotches by her tears, blue eyes tightly shut. It wasn't just the violent hug; it was her, totally opposite what Sam had in mind, given Dean's penchant for hard blond waitresses.

She wept in Dean's grip, sobs that shook her shoulders, and Dean was whispering in her ear, "It's okay, it's alright," until the force of the storm was past, and she was able to catch a breath. She turned her face away from the crook of Dean's neck, looked at Sam with a bit of embarrassment, and then pushed away from Dean to look up into his face.

Opposite what Sam had always pictured as a Dean girl, given the context of Dean's life, motels and hunts and stitching up father and brother; Nick was small and gamine and soft, and Sam could see the attraction. But there was the context, Dean wouldn't be Dean without the context, and Sam felt a strange anxiety, as if Nick would be crushed by the forward motion of their lives.

Not to mention the small lick of static electricity at the back of his neck when Nick had looked at him.

"You're always alright," she was saying to Dean, and Dean was giving her a grin like she was a kitten playing with the laces of his boots.

"You know it."

She returned the grin, kitten bright, and looked at Sam again. "Who's your friend?"

And Dean met Sam's gaze, saw the question there immediately, and his own gaze went blank, the green eyes empty, though one eyebrow raised in challenge at Sam's too long stare. "This is my brother, Sam," he said curtly, but if Nick took notice of his tone she did not let on.

Nick smiled, pure and sweet, her heart beating loudly on her sleeve, leaving Sam apprehensive at her vulnerability. "Hi, Sam," she said, holding out a hand.

Sam noted with a mixture of unease and _you've got to be kidding_ that her nails were pink, the color of sunrise. He took her hand, trying to return the smile. The itching feeling at the back of his neck increased at the touch, Sam's huge hand swallowing hers completely. Words had failed him at the moment, and he said only, "Hi, Nick."

Nick turned away from him, back to Dean, chattering brightly about an early dinner and come inside and aren't you tired. The brothers remained fixed to the ground, looking at each other; Dean's brows knitted together, Sam unable to express, unable to understand what had happened.

Only that when Missouri had touched him, Sam had felt like his hand had been held over a heater vent, warm, forced air over his knuckles. It was the same, and not, with Nick, Nick's touch like she was wearing wool stockings and standing on shag carpet, static raising the fine hair on the back of Sam's hand. Sam's unease had turned to outright dread at whatever Nick may have picked up from the touch, dread at having someone else see his part in Jess's death.

The only thing Sam had picked up from Nick was that she liked pink nail polish, and was ecstatically happy that Dean was here.

"We gonna stand out here all day? I got steaks grilling." Nick stood at the doorway to the huge Tudor mansion where Dean had drove them, her smile slipping a little, her eyes never leaving Dean's face. Dean turned, walking toward the house, pulling Sam after him, and as they followed Nick into the house, she said, over her shoulder, "And its Nicola, ass, I can't believe you forgot my name."

The mansion was huge, filled with oak and porcelain and silver, and Sam was afraid of touching anything. Dean roamed the halls familiarly, finding bathroom and kitchen and a room to put his duffle without Nick's help, Sam following in bemusement. Nick gave them beers as she finished dinner, slapped t-bones on their plates casually, and gave them more beers as soon as one was finished. She saw Sam staring at the vintages of wine in the table top wine rack, and shrugged uneasily. "Family money," she said, and returned to her chatter with Dean.

Chatter with Dean consisting of classes she was currently taking, the paper she had to write, and the students she was mentoring. In the middle of this, she paused, took a swig of beer, and said, "So what jobs have you done?" Her eyes suddenly flicking away from Dean, nervous.

Dean didn't react, smoothly shoveling in mouthfuls of asparagus. "Torched a ghost in Grand Junction."

Sam thought of Ellicott, and how he knew the doctor had been a follower of Freud. He balled a napkin in his hand and wiped at his mouth.

"Sounds run of the mill. Anything else?"

Dean barked, a small harsh laugh. "You're fishing, Nick."

The table fell silent, Nick looking hurt and woeful. Sam again felt a tremor of anxiety at how open she was, how readable to the world. The huge house smelled of furniture polish, and the faint sound of crystal trembling and Dean's fork on the china plate.

"What about this guy down south, with his arm torn off?" Sam forced himself to meet the blue gaze, shrug away the feeling of _too open too open,_ trying to stem the push of emotion at the back of his eyes.

Nick was silent, not meeting Sam's gaze, her blue eyes wide and guileless on Dean's face. "Well," she said briskly, pushing back from the table and standing up, "Let's go down to Gilgal, shall we?"

And Gilgal was strange, was completely beyond anything they had seen. The March wind was not kind, cutting through hoodies and jackets alike, the garden Nick led them into was frosted with left over snow, colored grey and black and dirty white. Sam paused briefly at the gate, a sudden aversion pushing him away from the garden. He put out a hand, curious, pushing lightly, and there was a corresponding push back, like magnets repelling each other.

He frowned, watching Dean in the garden, staring up at iron eagles, and pushed harder, taking a step through the gate. The odd repelling feeling was abruptly gone, and Sam looked up to see Nick's head turned in his direction. It was too dark to make out her expression, and she stood under an impossible archway made of stone, the largest boulder the keystone, directly above her head.

"Holy crap, this is weird." Dean was standing in small alcove cut into rock, the back of the alcove sculptured to mimic bricks. A full size bas relief sculpture of a man was next to the brick, along with scattered tools and inscriptions, all carved out of the rock. Dean's hands were tucked firmly in his pockets, as if afraid to touch anything, and he was bent at the waist, reading the inscriptions.

Sam felt scattered, couldn't pull his thoughts together to make sense of the garden.

"Mondo." Nick's voice was quiet, serious, and she stretched her arms out to touch both pillars of the arch, her head tipped back to watch the boulder above her. "A book I read, talking about Utah's own unique weirdness. The author called that weirdness mondo."

"So why are we here, Nick?" Sam's voice was too rough, and he felt more than saw Dean's head swing toward him. Sam still stood just inside the gate, eyeing the shadowy form of what he could only call a sphinx off to his right. "I mean, sure, its something to see, but what does it have to do with the guy down south?" He took another step, trying to lose the doped feeling, the feeling of having your breath knocked out mentally.

Nick stepped out from underneath the threatening balance of the arch, towards the wrought iron eagles. "William Child created this garden. He was a devout Mormon, and a top level Mason. Everything in here in some way touches on both what Mormons hold sacred and what Masons hold sacred." She was facing the sphinx shadow, and gestured to it. "Come look at this."

The sphinx was taller than Sam, with a stone face that looked austerely into the distance. The three gathered around, their heads tipped back to look into the sphinx's face, breath fogging in the chill night air. Again, the repelling feel crawled over Sam's skin, tightening like glue. He shook his head slightly, trying to meet the sphinx's gaze, but the thing did not bother to look at him.

"You okay?" Dean's voice low next to him, his brother's shoulder brushing his own. Dean still had his hands in his pockets, his face shuttered and blank.

Sam nodded, not able to tear his gaze away from the sphinx.

Nick too was staring at the sphinx, and her voice was rough when she said, "A body was found here, yesterday morning. Same manner. Arm torn off." And looking materialized the darker splashes on the inside of the sphinx's legs. Nick cleared her throat, spoke a bit louder. "The face belongs to Joseph Smith, the founder of the Mormon church. Who also was a high level Mason."

"So you think whatever's killing people is tied to both Mormons and Masons?" Dean looked at her, his face still emotionless.

She shrugged, her gaze steady on the sphinx. "It's the only theory I have." She moved forward, one hand out to hover just above the sphinx's right paw. "Hiram Abiff and the Lost Word."

And Sam took a step back, a slight stumble, his thoughts flung about the garden in confusion. Dean's gaze, in the dark, was sharp and searching on Sam's face, but he did not step toward him. "What?" The word came out stupidly, Sam finally able to look away from Joseph Smith's stone face, his own gaze, befuddled and uncertain, on Nick.

"The Lost Word. High level Masons know it. The word that brings the dead back to life." Her hand steady and still, a few inches above the sphinx's stone skin. "Hiram Abiff, the widow's son, helped build the temple in Jerusalem, considered by Masons as a master architect. He was the one given the Lost Word."

"Okay." Dean was tense, his gaze firm on Sam. "There's the Mason connection. What about the Mormon side?"

Nick was quiet. Sam's breath came in quick pants, emphasized by the cold. Dean's own face stone also, matching the sphinx. A barely audible sound like fire, crackling and snapping, under the hum of traffic and music from the coffee bar down the block. It was teasing, nearly comprehensible, asking for more concentration to make itself understood. Nick cleared her throat to speak, but Sam finally broke, not wanting to puzzle out what the sphinx was saying, turning and striding toward the garden gate. His back itched, and he half-expected the sphinx to suddenly stand and stalk after him. But there was only Dean's footsteps, following, and Nick's lighter step.

Sam stepped out of the gate, and suddenly could think again, his thoughts his again. He turned, peered back into the garden. In the darkness of a tumbled pyramid of stone, a huge boulder with an aquiline face stared out at him. "I need coffee," he heard himself saying, his voice casual.

"There's Rocky Mountain Coffee just down the block." Nick said, brushing past Dean and Sam standing at the garden's gate. A slight hesitation on Dean's part, his brother still watching him, and Sam remembered his dream of the tree in front of the house in Lawrence, the feeling of _not clean_ that stuck with him even when Missouri said it was okay.

_Mondo_, he thought, and turned to follow Nick.


	3. Pioneer Children Sang as They Walked

A/N: Crap, this was a hard chapter to write. I'm terrified everyone will hate Nick, and would love to hear some feedback on her. I also want to let people know this isn't about bashing Mormons, this is a story about Sam and Dean and their wild and woolly exploits. Oh, and this chapter does have a sex scene – nothing NC-17, all of it nice and romantic and fade to black. Let me know if it works for you.

Usual disclaimer, let us bow our heads reverently and say hallelujah to Kripke's genius.

ooooOOoooo

Dean was running, borrowed fear chill on his neck, breath coming in harsh gasps. His heart pounded in his ears, his legs ached with strain and dread, and he kept up the low chant of _not mine not mine_ like a shield in his brain. Sam was ahead of him, lean frame stretched out low to the ground like a greyhound, his head slightly turned to keep Dean in his peripheral vision. Sam turned his head fully, met Dean's eyes, both men seeing with a shock the outright terror in the other's face.

The mountain meadow stretched ahead of them, curving downhill gently, bushes of sage and low pinion scattered picturesquely across its breast. At the bottom of the hill, nearly a hundred feet away, the Impala wavered optically in the mild afternoon sun. Dean's thoughts were breaking up, the mantra of _not mine_ becoming _where's mommy_ and _need to hide. _He began to flag, his eyes darting in search of shelter, his gasps for breath becoming sobs. 

He saw Sam check his headlong flight, saw his brother veer to the right, Sam's face looking over his shoulder toward Dean. "Dean!" Sam's call touched with panic, his eyes wide with fright. "Dean, man, not yours! Not yours!" But Dean did not heed the call at first, still thinking _gotta hide gotta hide_, and then Sam yelled, "Impala! Dean, there's the car!"

And abruptly Dean's unanswered calls for mommy turned to _Impala Impala, _his eyes going to the shine of it in the spring sun. Inside was leather and vinyl and tapes and safety, his safety, his, his, his own. Possessing more important than breathing, at that moment.

Sam's direction corrected itself, pointed like an arrow towards the small gravel parking lot where they had left the Chevy, and together they pounded down the incline into the parking lot, gravel spurting from under their shoes. They collided with the Impala, the car rocking from their movement, arms and bodies open and pressed against chrome and metal and rubber.

"Oh, thank God," Dean whispered voicelessly into sun-warmed metal, his lips brushing the hood of the car.

They were quiet for a long while, willing away the after effects of fear over a hundred years old, stilling their gulps for air and the tremble in their knees. Spring sun beamed benignly down, the sky pale and dappled with cumulus. Bird song occasionally punctuated the silence, and very distant, the hum of traffic on the interstate.

"Well," Sam tried, and his voice broke. He leaned his head against the doorframe of the car, his palms flat on the roof. Dean did not look up, his chest flat on the car's hood, admiring his brother's sheer courage in speaking. A cautious clearing of his throat, and Sam spoke again, his voice stronger. "Well, that didn't go like we planned."

Dean's responding chuckle was both soundless and humorless. He still didn't trust his voice, only turned his head, his cheek warm on the black metal, and looked at his brother. He knew Sam was using words to recover, to push away whatever terror he had borrowed, but Dean just wanted the Impala, wanted to curl up in the glove box and feel Impala all around him. Echoes of needing mommy so bad his chest hurt haunted the corners of his mind and he squeezed his eyes shut against loaned tears.

Sam looked away from his brother's too-bright gaze, his eyes roaming the countryside, carefully avoiding the meadow they had just retreated from. He squinted against the sun. "Is it always that bad? I mean, didn't you and Dad check this place out before?"

Dean finally found the courage to push himself off the Chevy's hood, step around to the door, open it, and slide inside. The slight taint of coffee reassured him more than anything else. He took a deep breath, leaning his head against the neck rest, feeling the car rock slightly as Sam slid in next to him. Dean finally trusted his voice enough to answer. "We've been here plenty of times, checking up. It's always been creepy, but this –" He could only wave his hand in the direction of the meadow. "This is bat shit crazy."

Sam picked a map off the seat next to them, jostling the box of rock salt with a shaky hand. He ignored it, concentrated on opening the map. Neither brother commented on how long it took or the extra rustling from the paper. "The first victim was killed just a dozen miles from here, there's dozens of farm roads all over the back country." He paused, took a quick peek at the serene meadow in the spring light. "Do you think one of these – "

But Dean was shaking his head, thoughts of _where's mommy _and _someone help _rattling around like bones in his mind. "Scare him to death, yeah. But that guy had his arm torn off. Little too physical for – uh, whatever that was." Again, the vague wave toward the meadow, Dean not able, or willing, to express the sheer terror that had engulfed him.

Sam was not looking at him, and not looking in a way that roused Dean's suspicions, Sam's gaze everywhere but anywhere close to where Dean sat. "Why do you say that? What did you feel out there?"

Dean gripped the wheel, the solidness of the car around him calming him, watching the remaining tremors move through his hands. "Fuck." His voice was low, but the soft tone did not hide his intensity. "I couldn't find my mom. And no one was helping. Someone fell by me, and he had blood coming out his head. I just wanted my mom."

Sam was silent. A spring breeze flattened the grass outside, whispered around the edges of the Impala. Sam turned his head toward the meadow, his gaze steady and unflinching, and again Dean was impressed by his brother's sheer will in not giving in to fear. "We have to go back."

Dean was aghast. "What? Why?"

"Dean, it's on the map. People stop here." Sam gestured to the flagpole and small historical marker in front of them, the flag snapping lightly in the breeze. "Someone come out here with a heart problem? They'll drop before they get a yard away from the parking lot."

Dean's eyes were narrowed, staring at Sam, feeling the total unfairness of it, but already steeling himself to step out into the mild wind. "Fine. Goddamn son of a bitch."

Sam grinned in response, acknowledging Dean's mix of emotions. Still, they sat quietly, neither moving to leave the car, the small spot of comfort warmed by their body heat and breath. The wind picked up, voicing a small moan at the corner of the Impala's trunk.

"Shit."

"Double shit."

A shared look, and as one they opened their doors, bodies moving in synch, ignoring the faint smell of gun smoke and blood in the air. They did not venture into the heart of the meadow this time, but skirted the edges, measuring by the skitter of fear across their skin exactly where the phenomenon began. Dean pushed it, weary of the constant challenge of dread in his brain, and Sam found him kneeling in the grass, hands fisted in the soft earth. Soft coaxing, which did each brother good, brought them back to the Impala.

Sitting in the car again, slumped against the seats and eyes closed against the wide emptiness that surrounded them. Dean spoke, ignoring the stutter in his voice. "What did you feel, the first time?"

"Give me a sec." Sam bent one knee, the joint giving a small pop.

"Okay."

"About 30 feet in diameter, with that one little spot over by the pinon grove. Give or take?"

They both still had their eyes closed, sun becoming too warm for comfort in the enclosed space, small patches of heat on their legs. "Give or take," Dean echoed.

"What do we do?"

Dean sighed, moved his knees out of the sun, opening his eyes and pushing keys into the Impala's ignition. "Like I said, it's always been creepy, but never dangerous. Remains are long gone." He squinted out over the meadow, the small pinon grove a dark shadow at the hill's brow. "It's like something stirred it up. We gotta figure out how to unstir it."

"Some sort of ritual."

"Yeah. Binding, banishment."

Dean started the car; the sound and feel of it straightening Sam out of his slump, making him open his eyes. Dean put the car in gear, turned the Impala's nose toward the interstate. The flagpole and historical marker were briefly framed in the rearview mirror as they drove way.

Sam's indrawn breath was either a sob or a soft laugh. "I was shooting people." He paused, cleared his throat, and spoke casually. "Trying to control my horse, the bastard going crazy underneath me. No one would stop me. I wanted someone to stop me. No one would stop me."

And it was thirty minutes later, the Impala rolling smoothly on the interstate, when Dean punched the dashboard, hard. "Fuck, Sam! I mean – "

"Yeah," Sam said, smoothly.

"Ellicott, and this –"

"Uh huh."

"Dude, you're too open. You gotta stop this."

"Oh, is that what I have to do? Good idea, Sherlock." The sarcasm startling coming from Sam's boyish face.

Dean's eyes sparked, but he kept his mouth shut, counted to ten. "Do you wanna talk to Missouri?"

"God, no." Sam paused, looked out the window, staring down the driver in the minivan next to him. "It's tied to Dad, somehow. I think if we find him, maybe he can –" He looked away, the minivan slowing next to him, dropping out of sight. "Maybe he knows something, can do something."

A small silence from Dean. "Dad knows Nick, Sam. I haven't asked, 'cause – I dunno, I was tired of it. Tired of pursuing him." He chanced a quick glance at Sam, who was watching him warily. "We could ask Nick if Dad's checked in, or called, or something."

Sam nodded, his jaw working, brow furrowed. "Dad's the key."

Dean wasn't sure he was meant to hear that last whisper, and there was a mental stumble as he struggled with what to do, what to say. His brother, for a brief moment, had been Dean's calm, Dean's respite, a place to go to stop the ever spinning wheels of his mind. In Jericho. As when Sam's walls came tumbling down.

And now? After Ellicott, and a dream of a twisted tree in Lawrence? After Sam lit up with dead certainty, saying _watch me_ and standing by his hospital bed, scaring Dean worse than the rawhead ever had? Still Dean's calm, turned midnight. Still Dean's respite, the eye of the storm.

"What was that, back there?" Sam, changing gears, bringing the focus back to the hunt.

Dean wasn't sure he wanted to address it again, his knees still giving occasional shakes, like an old man's palsy. But he answered doggedly, knowing talking about it would put distance in it; give him a chance to back away from the experience. "Mountain Meadows. Back in the 1800's a group of settlers from Arkansas on their way to California was ambushed and attacked there. Most of them were killed."

Sam's face was stoic. "Who did the killing?"

Dean raised an eyebrow, considering, suddenly weary. "Mormons."

ooooOOoooo

"Well, yeah," said Nick defensively, her arms crossed, the pale light from her monitor catching the points of her cheeks, the edge of her chin. "But there was Haun's Mill Massacre just a handful of years before that."

Nick's bedroom was a tornado of purple and pink and black. Pictures of her and nameless family members mixed with art deco and touches of punk rock on the walls. Sam had found an overstuffed chair in the corner, next to Nick's desk, and shifted books and boxes to sit and look over her shoulder at the monitor.

Dean prowled the room, touching knick knacks, rifling through a forgotten make up kit, raising eyebrows at the whimsical concoctions of leather and plastic that were Nick's shoes. Nick's eyes went to him often, even as she worked at the computer, soft touches of blue. Her gaze, when she looked at Sam, was less soft, though still open and friendly. Whatever electricity that had built up at their first meeting seemed to have dissipated, drawn off by whatever stalked the gardens of Gilgal.

Sam was still hearing the report of the gun in his hand, smelling gun smoke, and was itching to stretch his fingers over Nick's keyboard. He nibbled at a cuticle, watching Nick's defensive posture, the way she curled into herself. "What's Haun's Mill?"

"Back in 1838, seventeen Mormons living in Missouri were rounded up and killed at Jacob Haun's mill in Missouri. It touched off a chain of events that eventually led to the expulsion of Mormons from Missouri." Nick did not glance at the website still up on the monitor.

"So that makes it okay to turn around and slaughter a bunch of settlers?" Sam's jaw was tight, his brown eyes hot on Nick's face. He didn't care about Haun's Mill, hadn't felt massacred Mormons, just murdering ones. He recognized the unfairness of it, but was unable to curb his anger.

Nick physically flinched from Sam's anger, drawing one leg up underneath her, her face turning to Dean. "I wasn't trying to excuse it, I was just trying to – " She broke off, met Sam's gaze again. "I'm sorry, about whatever happened down there. That place is – not a fun place to be."

"Doesn't matter why it happened." Dean had finally circled in to land, finding an edge of Nick's bed not covered by clothes, falling back on the bed amongst t-shirts and bras. "All kinds of shit in the history of whatever church you're looking at." He found an invention of lace, elastic and satin, and rubberbanded it across the room at Sam, a half-hearted attempt at humor. "We just gotta figure out how to stop it."

Nick sighed, turned back to the monitor, Google's bright colors filling the screen. "Still haven't found a real, solid connection with all the Mormon stuff. This last incident sure screams some sort of connection."

Sam abruptly stood, reaching his full height suddenly and quickly, and Nick gaped up at him. "Sorry," the apology swift and instinctual after a lifetime of looming over people. He gave Nick a smile, the full force of his emphatic brown eyes, and what he received in return dissolved most of the unearned antipathy he had felt toward her. She was so open, every emotion written across her face for all to see, totally opposite what he had lived with most of his life. Jess had been that way, eager to share happiness and tragedy, oblivious of any other way to be, and Sam had begun to unbend a bit himself before …

His mind shied like a horse hearing a rattlesnake, Sam's habit of pushing aside emotion in the Winchester way returning fivefold. After Jericho, it had seemed perverse, to go back to hidden emotions and calculation, but a lifetime of doing so had not been erased by four years of Jess. And it seemed equally perverse that Dean, the master of secrets and veiled looks, would be worshipped by a little slip of a thing so open sunlight practically shined through her.

But Nick was smiling at him like sun from behind a cloud, and Sam let himself respond, feeling somehow lighter. "I'm gonna get my laptop. I could help with the research."

She nodded, turning back to the monitor. "That'd be great. I have a bitch of a paper to finish tonight."

Nick's house was dark and thick with shadow. Sam roamed its halls with his own sort of haunting, letting one hand trail along walnut paneling. They'd been there nearly a week, never seeing anyone other than Nick, leaving in the morning with her dwarfed by the house, coming back to find her rattling around like a penny in a crystal vase. If there hadn't so much other effluvia swirling around him and Dean Sam would have asked. Plenty of family in pictures in her room, nothing in the empty house she lived in.

He found the bedroom he and Dean shared, something bigger and more comfortable than he had seen since visiting Jess' grandparents in Long Island. The beds were carefully made, their bathroom items neatly arranged, his laptop waiting for him on the desk in the corner. Sam had pushed aside the troubling thought of maid, preferred to think Nick did all the clean up, and lived in this state of denial happily.

He crossed the room, in the dark, one hand out, reaching – so close, he nearly made it, possessing more important than breathing at that moment. It was easier to just let his knees buckle, a kind of guided fall to the floor, the heft of a gun handle in his hand again, the thought of _please, God, let someone stop me_ echoing in his brain.

"Sam."

He knew it was Nick before she called his name, knew it by the way her hand on the doorknob snapped out a spark of electricity. There were faint pulses of light in the corners of his eyes, random and irritating, like a staticky blanket being unfolded in the dark. The brief moment of connection in the bedroom, seeing past stranger and into friend, was instantly erased by the repelling feeling of two magnets, wrongly aligned, pushing away from each other.

He was still sitting on the floor, trying to push steel into his joints so he could stand again. He rested his wrists on his bent knees, peering up at Nick silhouetted in the open doorway. "What did you find?"

"His name."

Gilgal, again. The same face peering at him from a niche among tumbled boulders. The same eagles, too close to the Nazi eagle for comfort, looming over him. And the sphinx, gaze unreadable, staring into the middle distance.

They had clambered over the fence, Dean agile and clumsy at once, somehow graceful in the fact that he didn't break a wrist. Sam on auto-pilot, remembering the cold chain link in his hands, not remembering how he came to be standing in a muddy flower bed next to Dean, the night mild and cool and silent around them.

Nick had not joined them, the look on Sam's face as she stepped toward the car stopping her like a brick wall. Sam wasn't sure he could have handled Nick's static along with the chill in Gilgal, and still smelling gun smoke like he had bathed in it. And the thought of Nick touching something, her electricity being drawn into the sphinx, set him on edge. Nick in Gilgal was wrong, like mixing honey and blood.

He had to stop for a moment, and because it was just the two of them, he put his hands on his knees and took long gulps of air, the taste of spring in his mouth and running into his lungs. He straightened, meet Dean's gaze, and gave a half shrug. "Something about this place."

Dean nodded curtly, Sam skirting too near unknown places, legends of _here be monsters_ flashing a warning. "Let's check out the sphinx." He turned and began to walk toward the sphinx, a mere dozen steps away, and Sam following, suddenly felt as if an icicle had impaled his heart.

"Wait." The word no sooner out of his mouth when a figure stepped out from behind the sphinx.

"… the hell?" Dean stopped, hands hovering at his side as he took stock, determining friend or foe or shoot the hell out of it.

"Brother?" The figure was a man, dressed in a white shirt and dark tie, the shirt stained with something unknowable in the dark. His face was pale and featureless with night and distance, the sphinx still five or six steps away.

Sam was frozen, Dean between him and the man with the sphinx, the icicle in his heart making it impossible to take a deep breath, to take a step closer to Dean. Dean's shoulder was partially blocking his vision, and all he could see was the man's head and shoulders, but he was wrong somehow, out of sync with the grass under his feet and the stone carving next him. The night sky seemed to bleed into him, or he into the sky, a toddler not able to keep one color in the lines.

"Don't think so," Dean was saying, Sam's _wait_ still fresh in the night air. He kept his hands loose and close, watching the man in front of him. "I'm not your brother."

There was no response from the figure. He reached out a hand, caressed the stone chest next to him, his face unmoving, watching Sam and Dean. He began to whisper, the sound carrying easily in the thin air, the whispering a song that neither of them knew. "We thank thee, oh God, for a prophet…" A slight hitch, like breathing done wrong, using something other than lungs. "To guide us in these latter days."

"Dean." Sam whispered the name, and Dean turned his head, looking over his shoulder at his brother. Sam's eyes were darting from sphinx to the man to Dean, trying to watch everything at once. "I think that's him."

The song the man was whispering abruptly cut off, and the man had taken a step toward them. "Brother?" he asked again, head cocked, his arms dangling at his side.

"Like I said, I'm not your brother." Dean's voice louder, but he had heard Sam, and was slowly backing away. Neither had a weapon beyond the hunting knife at Dean's belt, thinking only of reconnaissance, salt and guns tucked safely away.

"Not my brother." The man's voice louder, mimicking Dean's tone and he took another step, only three of four between him and Dean now.

And the icicle still in Sam's chest, beating in time with his heart, Sam barely able to think around it. The night was still mild, still bursting with spring, but underlying it like a worm in the heart of a rose, a taint, a sense of foulness. Sam could taste it on the back of his tongue.

Dean again eased back slightly, his shoulder bumping into Sam's chest. "That's him?"

"Not. My. Brother."

And the man was standing right next to them, a nearby streetlight picking up the shine of his eyes, the spit on his lips. Dean was on Sam's far side, Sam's shoulder between him and the man, and the coldness radiating off of the thing was arctic intense. His head was slightly cocked, looking at Sam, his face still vague and unreadable, the stains on his shirt showing rust at the edges.

"Someone stop me," he said, as if starting a conversation, and the icicle had melted and spread through Sam's bloodstream, frost limning his heart. The thing raised an arm, reaching out in a gesture of _let's shake hands_, open palm ready to grasp.

"ZELPH!" Dean's voice, harsh and loud in the still air, and Sam flinched from the force of it.

The thing reacted instantly, turning to Dean and stepping back, away, his face surprised and hurt. His hand was still open, still wanting to touch Sam, but Dean's knife was out, threatening and pathetic at the same time. "You," said the thing, said Zelph. A breath, the thing's chest moving wrongly. "You should have died."

Sam didn't know if the thing was talking about Dean's heart and the reaper or whatever spirit Dean had tapped into at Mountain Meadows. Dean's face was stone, his shoulder overlapping Sam's, his hand gripping the knife confidently. "Zelph," he said again, soft and ruthless. "Zelph, the White Lamanite."

Zelph snarled soundlessly, his lips twisting in a smooth, unremarkable face.

There was a soft grunt from Dean, and the irritating rub of his shoulder on Sam's chest was suddenly gone. Sam turned his head to see Dean thump solidly against the sphinx, the knife at Sam's feet, Dean's face caught with left over pain.

Still cold, still frozen, but Sam turned back to Zelph, painful gravel in his neck. "Zelph the White Lamanite," he said, thinking of magnets pushing away, the bite of electricity.

Zelph turned, strode away across the pale grass of the garden, vaulting the chain link fence easily. The hum of traffic and darkness soon swallowed him. The chill in the air seemed to dissipate a bit, Sam's sluggish thoughts picking up heat, able to move again.

He went to Dean, knees popping, wrists stiff and arthritic. Dean had pushed away from the sphinx, digging fingers into the sore spot on his back, watching the darkness where Zelph had disappeared. "You okay?" Sam asked, moving blue lips.

Dean nodded. "He doesn't like the sound of his own name." He moved past Sam, scooping up the hunting knife discarded in the grass. He wiped it on the back of his leg, held it up to inspect the blade. "Wish we knew more about him."

"How do you unsay a word, Dean?" Sam was next to the sphinx, caught again by it's almost movement, the secrets in its gaze. "They found him buried, dug him up, and Joseph Smith said the Lost Word. Claimed they had found Zelph, the White Lamanite, a great warrior on the side of God.

Dean sheathed the knife, the movement pulling at his banged up shoulder. He grimaced, reaching for the spot. "Should have brought the Glock." He searched again the shadows where Zelph had gone. "Wonder if we could shoot it?"

"It's a zombie, or a revenant. Something like that. I'm still wondering about the Masonic word though, if it gives it something other than just zombie skills." He held his hand out and over, much like Nick had done, inches away from the stone paw.

"Zombie skills?" Dean slightly amused, quirking an eyebrow at him.

And Sam's mouth curved slightly, heat bringing humor. He dropped his hand, and walked toward Dean. "Can we go?"

They stopped at the Impala, Sam taking the shot gun and Dean the Glock, grabbing the smaller Beretta and pushing it into the waistband at the small of his back. Gilgal straddled both residential and urban zones, so Dean searched through alley ways and bar parking lots while Sam clambered over fences and avoided dogs in backyards. They searched for nearly two hours, and the dark was lightening into sepia tones when Sam's phone vibrated in his pocket.

"Yeah."

"I'm done with this shit. Some drunk tried to pee on me."

Sam found the strength to smile. "Meet you back at the car."

They sat for a small moment as the Impala idled, staring through the windshield into Gilgal gardens. Zelph had disappeared. Sam looked away, up at the granite mountains that ringed the valley. Cold and electricity had drained away under the constant throb of exhaustion, and he knuckled his eyes like a child.

"We still gotta figure out Mountain Meadows," mumbled Dean as they pulled away.

Sam ran his fingers through his hair, yawned, and checked his watch. "It'll be dawn in a few hours. Let's get back to Nick's, catch some sleep."

And Nick like a kitten in the rain, wan face and blue eyes warily watching Sam. She was sitting in the breakfast nook as they entered, a pot of freshly brewed coffee before her. She held her mug before her face, coffee smell and steam a poor substitute for hiding. "Any luck?"

Sam shook his head, not trusting his voice, the smell of a blanket hot from the dryer making the hair on his arms stand up. Snaps and crackles sub-audible, someone dragging their feet through shag carpet.

"Saw Zelph." Dean's voice husky, the day and night spent in near total terror smudging his eyes.

Nick's mug hit the table, coffee slurping over the sides. "So you know its Zelph?"

Dean nodded. "It reacted to the name." He winced, stretching his shoulder out, and plopped down in the chair next to Nick. "Coffee." The word whispered reverently.

Nick's face went from drawn to concerned, brows furrowed over blue eyes. She was silent, pouring coffee, her eyes going from Dean to Sam to the mug.

Sam was still standing, the itch of static keeping him on his feet. "I'm sleeping," he said, unable to meet Nick's gaze. He looked at Dean, slumped over his mug, steam wreathing his face, and Nick watching him, concern softening the blue of her gaze into something warm and unnamable.

Nick and Jess were not alike at all, because Jess had a core of strength and determination that he didn't see in Nick, and the only way they were alike was in the light touching them, shining through them. Light that existed as if darkness did not; innocent and almost naïve and Sam wanted Jess so much his chest felt hollow. He turned, making for the bedroom, holding hurt to him like a blanket, snaps of electricity sharp on his cheek.

ooooOOoooo

Coffee smell. Nick's eyes on his face. Sam safe in bed.

Comforting, all of it, and another thought of the Impala in the garage capped it, almost stopped the thread of missing mommy that still ran through his brain. He bent over the mug of hot goodness on the table, nearly too tired to lift it.

"You okay?" Nick's voice soft and warm.

He nodded, closed his eyes. "Yeah. Just tired."

"Dean. I know about the reaper."

His reaction was slow, and subdued, opening his eyes and straightening a bit in his chair. He stared at Nick, remembered this about her, how she would know about things, call him or Dad up out of the blue and point them in the right direction. Dad's eyes always shadowed and suspicious after, wary of things unnamed and unknown. Dean caught between Nick, the person she was and the skill she used, and unwilling to throw one over for the other.

Which had been good practice for Sam suddenly dreaming of their old house in Lawrence.

He sighed, stretched out a leg under the table. "So if you know about it, why do you want to talk about it?"

"I don't want to talk about it." Her voice was low, tears threatening, and Dean looked at her. "It was terrifying, is all. I knew you would be okay, but all I saw was the reaper, looking down at you. Not fun." She tried a shaky smile, blinking.

And Dean gazed at her, tracking the line of her cheek, the softness in her jaw, blue eyes too bright. He leaned forward, rested his forehead on the smooth skin of her upper arm, closing his eyes again. He felt her head turn, felt the soft kiss on his hair.

Nick had been a spot of warmth and humor and sanity in that first year after Sam had left, when Dean was holding on by his fingertips, both to himself and to his father. It had been hunt after hunt after hunt, salting and burning, shooting silver bullets, and every t-shirt he had was ruined by either blood or assault. John moved like he had every evil thing in the world behind him, and Dean could only follow, mute and hollow.

He moved closer to her, sitting on the edge of his chair, both arms going around her waist as she shifted, putting her arm around him. His head rested briefly on her chest, listening to her heart, soft and rapid under his cheek. He moved again, gently, leaving his chair and kneeling before her, and they were eye level, green to blue, and he was kneeling in the open vee of her legs.

But that was always how Nick had been, from the moment he had seen her, open and trusting that the world would give her nothing but light and joy. Dean, weighed down by dark, bone-weary from the constant battle of holding together the ragged edges of both his and his father's soul, wounded from Sam's sudden betrayal; all he could do was look her and see color and light.

Dean was kissing her, tiredness turning into tenderness, his hands curling into the chopped edges of hair at the back of her neck. Nick's fingers on his face, her palm on his chest, kissing back. He stood, drawing her up with him, and she wrapped her legs around his waist, his hands steadying her at the small of her back, and he broke off kissing to look at her.

"Your bedroom?" His voice low, calming, speaking to a wild thing.

She nodded seriously, her mouth and cheeks red from the roughness of the stubble on his chin. He kissed her again, smiling, and carried her down the hall to her room.

She hid her face in the crook of his neck, and he felt her smiling, breath on his skin as she laughed soundlessly.

"What?"

Her head moving, hair tickling his ear. "Nothing." Her voice small and husky.

He laid her down on the unmade bed, swept aside piles of laundry, and when he turned back, her face was lit up with that open look he had come to realize was his alone. He was the only one who could make her glow like that, make her mouth curve and tremble at once, make the grey in her blue eyes stormy and wild.

It ignited something in him, and he stretched next to her, one leg between hers, and he cupped her pointed chin with one hand and kissed her, nibbling at her lips and teasing her tongue with his own. T-shirts and jeans came off at the same time, soundless laughter again as they bumped each other with elbows and knees. Soundless sighs as he kissed her again, his hand cupping one small breast.

And suddenly he arched away from her, the small itch at the small of his back suddenly pain. "Shit!"

Nick blinked up at him, her mouth open in surprise.

Dean fell on the bed next to her, the pain on his back disappearing, but before he could breathe, there was a sharp sting on his chest. He looked down; saw the small flame dancing merrily across the smooth skin stretched over his ribs. Its blue heart was fluttering like a bird's, the tip of it shredding into nothingness.

Next to him, Nick gave a soft cry of surprise, and turned on her side to get a better look.

"Little help here?" Dean's voice came from between clenched teeth.

"Wait." Nick's eyes held something fey and wild, and she lowered her mouth to Dean's chest, kissing the scorched skin the flame left as it counted Dean's ribs. The contrast of sharp sting and soft wet was almost unbearable, Dean's head pushing back into the pillow, one hand clenching the sheet with white knuckles.

"…. god, Nick…."

The flame drifted lower, Nick following, and Dean was soundless beneath them, stretched taut and quivering. Pain won out finally, Nick's protectiveness of where the flame was heading, and a small dose of holy water allowed Dean to breathe.

Dean caught his breath, swallowed, and pulled Nick down to him, his kisses rough, hands demanding. He pushed her back, straddling her, and kissed a line of rhetorical questions between her cupcake breasts and down the soft round of her belly, rhetorical in that he knew the answer already, the affirmative answer that had been in her eyes since he had looked at her over his father's shoulder three years ago. But he liked the way she said yes to him, with her eyes and her mouth and her body, open and willing and yes yes yes, approval unique to Dean.

Her light was soft and organic, like a firefly on a humid summer night. Dean cupped the light in the palm of his hand, breathed on it gently, and was able to turn his back to the darkness.


End file.
